


After the End

by StevetheIcecube



Category: Xenoblade Chronicles 2 (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Grief/Mourning, Post-Endgame, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-19
Updated: 2018-06-19
Packaged: 2019-05-25 16:43:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14981279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StevetheIcecube/pseuds/StevetheIcecube
Summary: Mikhail had never anticipated still being around once it got to this point. They were all gone, but, against all the odds, he was still alive.





	After the End

Honestly, Mik didn't know why he was still around at this point. Everything was over. Everyone he had ever loved or trusted was dead. Some of them had died right in front of him. It was meant to be over. He'd even failed in his mission, technically, but he'd abandoned it before anyway. Before he'd entered a situation of certain death and then survived. He had gone into that fully accepting that he would definitely die. He would never see Patroka again, he wouldn't live to see the resolution of this conflict that was five hundred years in the making. He certainly hadn't expected to see...whatever this was.

He didn't know why he was alive, tagging along with a bunch of people who had been his enemies days ago. He knew they didn't trust him, but he was here now and apparently he wasn't capable of dying. And with what had happened to Pyra and Mythra...he was one of the oldest living creatures on this strange new world. Imagine that. He didn't even want to be alive!

That had been such an easy thing to think in the past. He didn't want to be alive because the world was a terrible place that had treated him with nothing but disdain and cruelty. He wanted nothing more than to follow his friends to the end. Oblivion, probably, with nothing really to follow them to, but he didn't care. He didn't want to be alive and around anymore.

Yet, somehow, he was still going. Still walking around, though he wanted nothing more than to just dissolve into nothingness. He wanted to be gone, yet with every passing hour he became increasingly aware that he just couldn't get what he wanted. No one who had done the things he did deserved good things, probably. He imagined that was how that one was going to work out.

"Heya Mikhail." Rex had decided to join him up on the clifftop, apparently. They were on the small outcropping from the main new landmass that was what remained of the Leftherian Archipelago. They were still a collection of islands, but they'd drifted apart and broken links in the absence of the Leftherian titan, so the construction of new bridges was still a work in progress. "Up here again? It's late."

"Funnily enough, I don't really need to sleep," he said. It wasn't funny, and he did need to sleep, just less than humans. The problem was that the final stretch to Elysium had involved pulling a couple all nighters. And he hadn't been able to bring himself to sleep since. So he'd gone nearly a week now. Maybe he did need sleep, but something was holding him back.

"I think you probably do," Rex said. "Pyra's sleeping right now, actually." His words held no small amount of pain. Mikhail could understand that. "Blades sleep, and you're more human than the average blade."

"I'll sleep when I feel like it," he said with a shrug. "And I don't feel like it right now." He looked away from Rex and up at the stars.

"Do you miss them?" Rex asked. Mikhail shifted on the grass. He knew exactly what Rex was referring to, who he was referring to, and it was pretty rude for him to ask so soon after it had happened, when he couldn't be reasonably 'over it', but...

"They didn't want to be alive, you know," he said. "Nor me. We only did it, only aimed for it anyway, because we didn't want to be alive."

"I don't think that's true," Rex said. Good lord he was so optimistic and clueless. "I don't think any of you really wanted to die. If you had, Patroka and Akhos wouldn't have protected Jin until the end. Or Jin would have let Amalthus kill us."

"You're wrong," he said simply. He didn't want to think about this yet. It was too painful. Maybe one day, if his life went on long enough.

"Do you still want to be dead, then?" Rex asked, and Mikhail had to exercise a considerable amount of willpower to stop himself from punching the boy.

"What do you think?" He snapped, standing up. He now had to resist the urge to kick Rex off the cliff. It would be very, very easy to just punt him off it right now.

"I think you don't," Rex said, even though he'd clearly just been asked a rhetorical question. "I think you want to give this world a chance to be better, and I know you don't want my opinion, but I think you should. I think Jin would have wanted you to. And Patroka, and Akhos."

"You only met any of them a handful of times," Mikhail snapped. "You only spoke to Patroka, what, thrice? Ever? You can't tell me what they would have wanted me to do, kid. I've known all of them for longer than you've even been alive and you're standing here telling me what they would have wanted. Maybe talk about something you understand in the future."

"Sorry!" Rex said, holding his hands out in front of him. He didn't seem very sorry in that moment, but after a few seconds of Mik glaring daggers at him, he started to look more apologetic. "I don't know. I know that you've had this goal for ages and now it's gone, but, well, I sorta hoped you'd find something to live for."

"Don't count on it," Mikhail said with a derisive snort. The only people who'd ever made him doubt what he wanted, and even then only for the slightest of moments, were all gone.

Rex didn't say any more, and it took an embarrassingly long while for Mik to realise that he'd gone, probably to go back to bed. That was probably a sign that he should do the same, but...he didn't know. Things had slipped away and changed so quickly. There wasn't anything left to cherish anymore, but the regret of not using the time he'd had was keeping him awake.

As much as he hated it, Rex's words made him think. Jin had wanted to stop Malos from destroying Alrest. They had fought to save each other's lives, back in Torna. They'd shared moments of happiness, which was the reason he was sad now. But he couldn't think of a reason they'd want him to be sad. Of course they'd been expecting death, but not while it still left people behind.

Mikhail stood up, walked away from the edge of the titan, and started to head back to where everyone had been sleeping. He wasn't over them, not by a long shot. He wasn't happy and he didn't really want to keep on living. But Architect damn it, he was tired, and he needed sleep. The survivor's guilt could wait until morning. At the moment, it was one step at a time, and maybe he'd make it. Maybe he wouldn't. At this point, he didn't know what 'it' was and if he cared if he made it or not.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm alive!! Drifted away from Xenoblade for a bit, mostly bc school, but I finished today and also the dlc trailer sucked me back into my trash hole.
> 
> As always, comments are appreciated :)


End file.
